Big big tune, never heard the 7" repess but I think it deserves the sound quality of a good 12" pressing. From the pic on Hj it's not shop stock of the original 12" which has publishing info missing on the HJ photo. No mentioning of a 12" repress on Greensleeves or VP web pages so no idea what Honest John is selling.

BTW, my 12" is on black vinyl, no idea if first press was coloured or black or both but I've owned my copy for a long time so it's definitely not a recent pressing.

maybe I don't understand but greensleeves started repressing good-as-original 12"s from the eighties a couple years ago and has reissued quite a number of them, at least ten, and I was pretty sure this diamonds tune was one of them. and the quality on the reissues ive gotten are excellent in fact it is very difficult if not impossible to tell the new one from the original.

and I don't think they are "bootleg" either; I was under the impression that VP was reissuing them under the greensleeves label.

Exactly JB, there are a number of the repress 12's in stock right now, Keith Hudson's 'Bloody Eyes' being one of the more recent I've seen. The sound issues with some of the VP box sets, etc. are not affecting the Greensleeves stuff, at least the ones I've heard (I haven't listened to 'Gates of Zion'). Same with the LPs they've reissued for GS that turned up recently.

Nice to see this 12" get repressed, especially if it was done right. Most Greensleeves 12" represses have been great but a few were faulty. From memory, Eek-a-Mouse's Noah's Ark lacked the extended mix of the original and Nitty Gritty's Run Down the World suffered from mastering issue. A while back I compared a couple of the Greensleeves LP reissues with the originals and the only real difference was that the represses were a bit louder. That said, I won't buy this one until I hear it but surely it will be better than that lame Roots label bootleg. Besides the illegitimacy of the Roots bootleg, it is just plain not cool to reissue an extended discomix as a 7".

edit: Oops, I didn't see the samples on Honest Jon's. It sounds great judging by those.